Do you need a guy that can come off the bench, create his own shot, score more consistently, and even light it up at times or do you want a guy that’s the better defender, more versatile on defense, that you can plug in as a starter if there’s an injury, that can get hot from deep, but that can’t be counted on to score every night?

First impression: This is the worst draft class I have ever seen.

After Zion, at best you are speculating on whether Ja Morant’s productivity would transfer from the ridiculously easy schedule he played against to better competition. Then the drop off gets you to players I’m not even sure I want. Maybe someone will stand out a little better after I get to see them play, but I’m not so sure I wouldn’t trade the pick if I didn’t get #1 or #2.

Also though, if the pick doesn’t go to Atlanta this year it almost certainly does next year. Our unprotected 1Rp is then 2022, which should be DEEP due to the end of 1-and-done so it’s not all bad. It does increase the risk that the second, protected 1Rp in the deal turns into 2rps though…

If we do manage to put together a super team, who would you want to keep between Trier and Dotson?

https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_hint=Damyean+Dotson&player_id1_select=Damyean+Dotson&player_id1=dotsoda01&idx=players&player_id2_hint=Allonzo+Trier&player_id2_select=Allonzo+Trier&player_id2=trieral01&idx=players

An interesting question… in a vacuum I’d take Dotson because he turns the ball over a lot less, can swing to the 3 and has a better body to defend on switches and defends better. He is also a plus shooter from three and should improve with the defense concerned about defending the 2 stars.

However if you can get the ball out of Trier’s hands (which shouldn’t be difficult with Durant/Kyrie) he can be a hell of a floor spacer with his electric spot up 3 ball.

If we do manage to put together a super team, who would you want to keep between Trier and Dotson? (For the purpose of this exercise, let’s restrict the deciding factors to performance)

I’m not a fan of Trier, even though I think he’s a good scorer. Dotson’s catch-and-shoot-while-playing decent-defense game makes more sense on a good team than Trier’s poor-man’s-Jamal-Crawford game. I mean, would you really ever want the ball in Trier’s hands if we had Kyrie, Durant, and Robinson on the team? Ever?

I also think we overpaid for him. I like Dotson even more given he makes $1.6 to Trier’s $3.5. Even if we do keep him, I can’t see it being at that $3.5mm value. We’d have to decline his team option and offer him 2nd round pick money. In the two-max scenario, getting rid of Smith, Trier, and Frank frees almost $13mm, and that’s enough to add a quality two-way player to the starting lineup.

I wonder what is really going on with Frank? A supposed “2 week” groin injury is entering it’s third month and aside from an avulsion fracture of the attachment of the aductors off the pubis I’m not sure what’s going on here.

Frank was drafted by the previous regime to bring the ball up the court, dump it into the post and traverse screens, hit an open 3 and play defense. The new regime is trying to jam a square peg into a round hole by “converting” him into an AAU point guard which he is most certainly not.

When you watch him play defense it seems like he and his teammates are reading from 2 different scripts: he’ll be guarding someone into a screen and passes the guy off and Kanter would just “ole”the guy and give him a clear path to the basket and Frank would have this puzzled LOL Wut? look on his face.

I hope he ends up in SA, Milwaukee, Dallas or Boston and he gets a chance playing for a real coach who values defense.

Of course it will be incumbent on him to play a lot better…

Also, if Farfa manages to put up a good recap after that debacle, we should nominate him for a Pulitzer.